Spaceflight License Plate

During February, we can sign up to get the new "First in Flight" Saturn V license plate. If at least a thousand people sign up, the state will issue this plate. It's beautiful -- the best-looking plate in the state. Others at our county courthouse agreed. Like me, they wish it was our standard license plate.

Other states come up with well-designed professional license plates, but it always looks like our state has a plate drawn by some official's sister's child. Why can't we have a nice-looking plate? Would it hurt to hire a real professional to do the designing?  It's a long-standing gripe of mine.

At least in this Saturn V plate, we can see professional work. It's very well-designed and goes for a good cause since Riley left the Space and Rocket Center,  out of the state budget this year.

Janet Jackson's Stunt Pays Off

Will success like this cause more stunts? From http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3309391:

Links to It All

My sister, Bonnie, suggested I create a page with links to everything I have ever put online for myself or our genealogy. I was working on it even as I read her e-mail - just finished it -- whew! Here's a comprehensive Links Page.

Beside that, the family tree page needed a more clean professional look --> BamaTree.com. Both pages match - I like that format a lot - so simple, too - may change another page over to it. My main concern is that the menu items take a little long to load.

A Couple of Jokes

Making Buttons

Perfume - "Dirt" or "Laundromat"

While on a business trip to Rhode Island, I visited the Providence Mall and fell in love with the "Oop" Store. It's charming and eclectic fun. They sell all kinds of oddball stuff. They had a popcorn popper and sold "Oop Corn" and, at the time, a webcam so you could wave to folks on the Internet (I bet that prevented some shop lifting).

The day we walked in, they were taking photos of people posing with a life-size cardboard cutout of Marilyn Monroe in honor of her birthday. Everyone who posed for a photo got a free pair of Marilyn Monroe sunglasses and their picture posted in the store doorway.

Fortunately, they have a website so the oddball stuff is still available. I bought this mirror while at the store. The nose broke off during our house flood. It looks a little "glued back on."

Currently their many offerings include dirt-scented perfume along with "gin and tonic" and "laundromat" varieties. I never know what to expect with this store.

Big Sony F717 vs Little Minolta Xt

I have a big, serious Sony camera and another fun little camera that slips in my pocket. Both cameras have their uses. The little camera outshines the big camera in one important area. With the default setting, why does the big expensive camera with the big name Carl Zeiss lens take such dark photos in room light while the little cheaper one takes much, much better photos in dim light?!! You'd think the fancy expensive camera would do better in this department.

On the other hand, the Sony can take photos almost in the dark using the flash or the black and white nightshot mode. I generally avoid using the flash -- it's too harsh, although it stops a moving image from blurring. Right now, most of my photo blog is made up of Minolta images.

I can't get it into my head that the big fancy Sony is this weak. I've looked through the settings and read the manual and still can't find a good setting to make nonflash dim room lighting come out better without having to resort to manual mode.

Watch the SuperBowl Ads Online

From Leoville.com, comes this link to viewing the SuperBowl ads again --> iFilm.com.

Speaking of the SuperBowl and Janet Jackson, I believe it was all a publicity stunt. I wish stars didn't feel like they have to resort to outrageous stunts to sell themselves and their albums. In the entertainment world, probably any publicity is good publicity... sigh. Maybe the repercussions will make the whole stunt more trouble than beneficial. It will be interesting to watch her album sales. If they rise higher than expected, we'll probably see more stunts like this from other stars.

BlogHop.com

This site collects icons from different blogs and offers an entire page of them - like an icon "quilt". However cute the idea is -- and I just uploaded an icon of my own -- I think it is dead. The newest icons were dead links. Darn.

Here's my rating code for this site. Since I think the place is uninhabited, I'll let this link scroll off. The page of icons are interesting and a basic automated system keeps it limping around. It's worth a look just to see the large variety of icons (select "page o' images").

Cinnamon for Diabetics

My friend, C.B., a diabetic, swears that eating a teaspoon of cinnamon a day has lowered his blood sugar to healthier levels. He likes it on his buckwheat pancakes (buckwheat is also supposed to be good for diabetics). Powdered cinnamon is not that strong. I put a whole teaspoon on my oatmeal.

P.S. I watched part of the SuperBowl last night. I was hoping the Carolina Panthers would win and I was planning to jokingly go around saying, "The South has Risen Again."

Oh well, I thought the ads were pretty lame this year -- and a bit too  crude for my tastes, but advertisers prefer to appeal to 21-year-old spendthrift males -- although those Viagra ads must have been meant for anther group.

Rice Krispie Treats - My Sister-in-Law's Version

Here is Marilyn's recipe - sweet and delicious:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats

1/2 cup butter

1 cup corn syrup

1 cup white sugar

Melt the first three ingredients in a pan. Bring to a boil. Boil 3 minutses. Remove from hear and stir in

1 cup peanut butter, then

6 cups Rice Krispies

Spread in greased 13 x 9 pan. Melt 1 cup chocolate chips and 1 cup peanut butter or butterscotch chips and spread on top. Cool before cutting. These were rich and yummy.

Nice Flash Templates

I want to use a good flash template to make a web page -- not one of those annoying movies that play before you can enter the page, but a regular home page with a just touch of flash animation and sound on it.

There's a great source for flash and other templates at: Perfectory.com. Those templates are amazingly good. The sound alone is amazing.

The only problem -- how does someone edit a flash file or an .fla or .swf file? Macromedia is not the only program that does this, is it? I haven't looked at the price, but I imagine it is expensive. Perfectory offers plain html versions, but the touch of flash is cool. They also offer to personalize the template - no cost is mentioned until you can chat with a designer, though.

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